Fastenal January Organic Sales Improve from December

Fastenal reported its January 2019 sales results on Thursday, showing a modest increase in year-over-year sales.

The company — No. 5 on Industrial Distribution’s 2019 Big 50 List — reported January sales of $462.9 million, up 3.6 percent year-over-year (YoY), with organic sales up by that same amount.

That daily sales growth was an improvement from December’s 1.0 percent growth, but follows it as the second-smallest YoY monthly growth the company has had since December 2016’s 3.2 percent. That was the company’s most recent low water mark before sales consistently hovered between the high single digits and mid double-digits throughout most of 2017 and 2018 before the current industrial recession took hold around Q2 of 2019.

Below, see Fastenal’s year-over-year monthly daily sales gains since the start of 2019:

Fastenal ended January with an even 22,000 total personnel, up 0.7 percent YoY. Fastenal has 14,222 total selling personnel, up 0.3 percent YoY.

Fastenal reported its 2019 fourth quarter and full-year financial results on Jan. 17. Q4 sales of $1.28 billion were up 3.7 percent YoY, with daily sales up by that same amount. Q4 total profit of $179 million was up 5.9 percent YoY, while gross profit of $598 million increased 1.8 percent and operating profit of $239 million grew 2.4 percent. For the full year, Fastenal had total 2019 sales of $5.33 billion, up 7.4 percent over 2018. Total profit of $791 million increased 5.2 percent, gross profit was up 4.9 percent and operating profit of $1.06 billion grew 5.8 percent.

Fastenal's January results were posted one day after the release of Fastener Clearing House's January Fastener Distributor Index, which showed a sizable improvement after three straight months of decline into contraction territory.